


A Crash Course in Floriography

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Prompt Fills 2018 [24]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 11:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14591766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the flowers fic_promptly prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay/Evan Lorne, sending a message with the language of flowers."Someone is leaving Rodney flowers. He tries to figure out who. Parrish, Kusanagi, and Dr. Bruno the linguist weigh in.





	A Crash Course in Floriography

_Amaryllis._

Rodney got to his workbench first thing after breakfast and came up short. “What is this weed doing on my desk?”

“It’s an amaryllis,” Parrish said absently.

“Why is it on my desk?”

Parrish shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know what it is.”

Rodney eyed it. “I’m not allergic to them, that I know of, but -” He pushed the little decorative flower pot toward Parrish. “Do something with it.”

“Like what? It has no scientific value.”

“Then why is it here?”

“Like I said the first time, I don’t know.”

Rodney sighed.

It was Bruno, from linguistics, who said, “Pride.”

Rodney glanced at her. “What?”

Bruno was delivering a translation of a written artefact to Kusanagi. “In Victorian flower language, it means _pride._

“That’s fitting,” Zelenka muttered.

Rodney glared at him.

“Or shy,” Kusanagi said.

Rodney looked at her. “What?”

“In Japanese flower language, it means _shy.”_ Kusanagi smiled at him.

“Rodney’s not shy,” Kavanagh said.

“But maybe the person who left him the flower is,” Kusanagi said.

Rodney narrowed his eyes at her. “Is it you?”

“I’m not shy anymore,” Kusanagi said, and winked at Major Lorne, who was Gene on Deck that day, before she left the lab.

“It’s a pretty flower,” Zelenka offered.

Rodney sighed. “I guess it is.” He turned to Parrish. “How do I take care of this?”

“Water and food,” Parrish said. “Like a pet.”

A pet.

 

_Red camellia and azalea._

Rodney named his amaryllis _Amy_ in a fit of originality, fed and watered her regularly. Katie Brown and Parrish both insisted that talking to plants helped them thrive. Rodney would never admit it, but he liked having a plant, because Amy was kind of like a pet. She was there on his desk every day, all bright colors, and Rodney was happier at his desk with her there - and with the little sun lamp that Parrish and Brown said she needed.

Rodney wasn’t a plant person, though, wasn’t a gardener, didn’t have a green thumb, and heaven forbid anyone call him a _botanist,_ so he was nonplussed when he arrived at the lab one day and there was a pot with two flowers in it, one with deep red rounded petals, one with big white petals, one of which had pink spots that darkened toward the center.

“What is this?”

 _“Camellia sinensis_ and _rhododendron,”_ Brown said.

“In English?”

“A camellia and an azalea,” Parrish said absently.

“Let me guess - more pets for me to take care of?” Rodney inhaled tentatively, but no sneezing occurred, so no allergy concerns.

“Not from me,” Brown said.

“Me neither,” Parrish added.

Rodney got on his radio. “Bruno, you speak flower, yes?”

“Do you mean am I familiar with floriography? I am. Why?”

“Because I have a camellia and an azalea on my desk,” Rodney said.

“What color is the camellia?”

“Why?”

“Different colors mean different things,” Bruno said.

Rodney started to speak, paused. He nudged Parrish. “Which is which?”

“Camellia red, azalea white and pink.”

Rodney told Bruno.

 _“A flame in my heart_ and _take care of yourself for me,_ respectively,” Bruno said. “Why do you assume there’s a message in the flowers? Could be they’re just pretty gifts, right?”

“Could be,” Rodney said. He reached out, pulled the flower pot closer. It wasn’t one of those generic terracotta pots that filled the botany lab. It looked handmade, hand-painted and glazed with shiny metallic colors, like coppertones.

“Raku,” Kusanagi said.

Rodney blinked at her. “Bless you.”

“The type of flower pots,” Kusanagi said. “It’s a Japanese ceramic glazing and firing technique.”

Rodney eyed her. “What do these flowers mean in Japanese?”

“The red camellia means _in love_ and the azalea means _patient,”_ Kusanagi said.

Rodney stared at the flower pot. “A flame in my heart, take care of yourself for me, in love, patient. What does it all mean?”

“Maybe,” said Major Lorne, who was initiating a device for Kusanagi, “it means someone is in love with you, you’re a flame in their heart, and they’re waiting patiently for you to realize it, and in the meantime you should take care of yourself.”

Rodney eyed him. “Really? That makes no sense.”

Major Lorne shrugged. “What would I know? I’m just an airman.” He stretched his hand out over the device, and it glowed blue.

His hand was stained with something.

Paint, maybe.

 

_Peony._

Rodney adopted Cammie and Zoe into his flower fold, fed and watered them alongside Amy, and endured a lot of lectures from Parrish and Brown about taking care of them, talking to them.

When he was offworld for extended periods of time, he entrusted their care to Parrish, because the man was a botanist after all, and even if his education was generally useless, it was useful for taking care of plants and making sure they were okay.

Although maybe Rodney should have been less concerned about his plants and more concerned about himself, because one thoughtless comment offworld led to a week in an alien jail, plus some torture and beatings, and when Rodney made it back to Atlantis, it was on a stretcher.

As he lay in the infirmary, doped up on pain medicines, he thought maybe he should have been more concerned about his plant, specifically Zoe.

_Take care of yourself for me._

Rodney drifted in and out of sleep.

John, Teyla, and Ronon were occupying the beds adjacent to him, and Beckett assured him they were okay. No one would let him have a radio, so he couldn’t check on the others.

“Amy, Cammie, Zoe. Are they all right?” Rodney tried to sit up.

“No, Doc, stay down.”

It was Major Lorne.

“My flowers. Are they -?”

“Parrish is on it,” Lorne said. He reached out, curled his hand gently around Rodney’s wrist. “You’re safe. Your team is safe. You were very brave. Now rest.”

Rodney clutched Lorne’s hand blindly, let Lorne lower him back to his pillow, and he slept.

When he woke, the worst of the opiate grogginess worn off, there was a raku flowerpot beside his bed, this one with a large pale pink, many-petaled blossom in it.

“It’s a peony,” Parrish said. He was carrying Amy, Cammie, and Zoe on a tray. “I brought them to visit you.”

“What does it mean?”

“Bruno came by to visit. She says it means _shame_ or _happy marriage.”_

“Neither of those make sense,” Rodney said, though perhaps _shame_ did, because he was always running off at the mouth when alien natives were stupid, and he knew better, he really did.

“Kusanagi says in Japanese it means bravery, though.” Parrish set the other three flowers down on Rodney’s bedside table beside the peony.

And somehow, through the fog of pain and drugs, Rodney knew. “That makes sense.”

 

_Chrysanthemum._

“You’ve been leaving me the flowers,” Rodney said. He stood in the doorway of the military command office.

Lorne, who was cleaning his sidearm, looked up. “What makes you think it was me?”

“Well,” Rodney started, then stopped. Did he actually know? He’d been pretty high on pain meds at the time, and he’d had a drugged-out conversation with Lorne during the worst of it. Add to that a throwaway comment from Kusanagi, and Rodney had thought he knew. But now he wasn’t sure.

Rodney eyed him. “You know someone is leaving me flowers. You weren’t surprised by that fact.”

“I’ve been in the lab a couple of times when you’ve gotten them.”

“True,” Rodney said. And now he really did doubt himself. Because on that planet, when they’d first run into Ronon, Lorne had seemed - sarcastic. Irritated. Unimpressed.

“Do you like the flowers?” Lorne asked.

“Yes,” Rodney admitted. “I’ve named the newest one - a peony - Penny.”

“Makes sense,” Lorne said.

“I try to be sensible,” Rodney said. “I guess I’ll keep on trying to find out who sent me those flowers.” And he went back to the lab.

He stared at Amy, Cammie, Zoe, and Penny in their pretty raku pots, and he wondered. Bruno and Kusanagi had been helping him with flower languages. Parrish and Brown had been helping him with the breeds of flowers. Was it one of them? Brown was kind of cute, in a mousy sort of way. Kusanagi had known the types of pots. Between her knowledge of the flower language and the pots, she was the most likely candidate.

But Rodney was also pretty sure she was dating someone.

And then one morning Rodney made it to the lab, and instead of a flower in a pot, there was a steaming cup of tea, in another handmade clay raku cup.

“It’s called a _chawa,”_ Kusanagi said. “Traditional Japanese, for tea ceremonies.”

“What kind of tea is it?” Rodney asked.

Kusanagi leaned in, inhaled some of the steam. “Chrysanthemum, I’d say. Good for colds. Add a dash of honey, maybe some sugar.”

“What does a chrysanthemum mean? In Japanese flower language.” Rodney cradled the little cup. It was warm in his hands, blues and violets and golds and coppers.

“Truth,” Kusanagi said.

Rodney sipped the tea tentatively. It was delicious, already sweetened with honey. When the tea was done, he rinsed the cup in one of the sinks.

There were initials in scratched into the bottom of the cup, where the clay was un-glazed.

EBL.

L, for Lorne.

What did the E and B stand for?

Rodney got on the radio and asked Cadman.

“Evan,” she said. “His first name is Evan.”

 

_Cactus._

So Rodney _had_ been right. The person leaving him plants was Lorne. Evan. But why? Of course Rodney knew why Evan hadn’t outright admitted it was him. That first plant, the amaryllis, meant shy. And also the whole stupid American notion of don’t ask, don’t tell. Evan could never say aloud how he really felt about Rodney.

But now that Rodney knew what to look for, it was pretty damn obvious.

Because whenever Rodney went to get dinner, he discovered that someone had ordered the KP Marines to make sure he got a piece of dessert set aside for him. The lab always got its shipment of coffee first, even before the Marines and the gate techs - and someone always put a bag of Rodney’s favorite blend in the bottom drawer of his work bench.

The Marines who did base-wide laundry made sure Rodney’s shorts were starched just how he liked, and the KP Marines stopped offering Rodney citrus-containing food altogether.

Rodney always got a supply of his favorite kind of whiteboard markers too.

Long before Evan had started sending Rodney flowers, he’d been doing nice things for him.

What could Rodney possibly do that was nice in return, that wasn’t also blatantly obvious and wouldn’t get Evan into trouble?

He consulted Kusanagi and Parrish. Parrish supplied him with a nicer terracotta pot and a cactus, because Kusanagi said _cactus_ meant _lust and sex,_ which Rodney was definitely interested in with Evan.

Bruno, standing by while Rodney let Parrish help him pot the cactus, added that in European flower language a cactus meant _endurance._

“Which you’ll probably need with Lorne,” she said. “Have you see his ass? It doesn’t quit.”

“Neither do I,” Rodney said, and promptly blushed when Bruno laughed and Parrish hooted.

Rodney left the cactus on Evan’s desk in his office - after making sure neither he nor John would be present.

And then he waited. How would he know Evan’s reply? Were there flowers for _yes_ or _no_ or _I accept?_

Rodney got his reply when he was in his quarters one evening after a blissfully uneventful day and his door chimed.

When he answered it, Evan was on the other side with a bag of plant food.

“Parrish asked me to deliver this,” he said.

Parrish, Rodney remembered, was on Evan’s gate team.

“Of course,” Rodney said. “Please come in.”

Evan stepped into Rodney’s quarters, and the door slid shut behind him. It beeped again, locking.

“I keep the plants over here,” Rodney said, and Evan crossed his quarters, set the bag of plant food on the floor beside Rodney’s little plant table, the one next to the window that led to the balcony so they could get appropriate sun.

Evan said, “I got the cactus. It’s a lovely specimen.”

“I’m glad,” Rodney said.

They looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment, and then Evan said, “I’d better go, so -” He turned away, started for the door.

Rodney reached out, caught his wrist. “Wait.”

Evan paused. “Yes?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of it.”

“Yes I am,” Rodney said, a little impatient and confused.

Evan said, “So long as you’re not asking, I’m not telling you what you can and can’t do.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “I’m not in your military.”

“You’re just best friends with my commanding officer.”

Rodney said, “Get over here and kiss me.”

Evan said, “Yes, sir.”

 

_Bluebell and lavender_

Evan in bed was amazing, in turns pliant and soft, inviting Rodney into his embrace and into his body, at other times heated and hungry, pinning Rodney down and kissing him breathless, stroking him to the edge of completion and then not finishing him.

The entire night was a haze, a dream, a memory.

When Rodney woke, he was alone.

He was pretty sure his encounter with Evan hadn’t actually been a dream, though.

Because there was a sketch of a flower on Rodney’s nightstand beside Amy, Cammie, Zoe, and Penny.

Parrish said it was a bluebell.

 _Grateful,_ it meant in Japanese flower language, according to Kusanagi.

“It’s my middle name,” Evan confessed softly, curled beside Rodney in his bed after their second encounter.

Rodney was too exhausted, body still tingling with the aftermath of orgasm, to raise the energy for much mockery, but he couldn’t let that piece of information pass without comment. “Really? What - was your mother a hippy?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well. Evan Bluebell - my real first name is Meredith.”

“Mmmmm, Welsh. Originally a last name. Means _lord of the sea._ Evan is a Welsh name too, you know. The Welsh variant of John. But Lorne is a Scottish last name, like McKay. Men of the Campbell clan were sometimes given the title Lord of Lorne.”

“You and I have an awful lot in common,” Rodney said. “Who’d have thought.”

“I thought,” Evan said, and pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder. Then he curled closer and fell asleep.

Rodney couldn’t fall asleep, tired though he was. He stayed awake, watching Evan sleep, how young and innocent he looked, the rise and fall of his body as he breathed, the intricate lines of ink on his shoulder and chest.

When Rodney finally did fall asleep, it was almost morning.

When he woke, Evan was gone.

Rodney was still yawning at his workbench in the lab after three cups of coffee. Was it his imagination, or were Kusanagi, Parrish, Brown, and Bruno all smirking at him? Why were Parrish, Brown, and Bruno in the physics lab at all?

“You all right?” Parrish asked.

“Had trouble falling asleep,” Rodney said.

That night, Evan brought him a vial of lavender oil. “I hear you’re having trouble sleeping. I find this helps.”

Rodney accepted the vial, tumbled Evan to the bed, and proceeded to find a much funner way of wearing himself out so he could sleep.

“You know,” Kusanagi said, the next day, when Rodney was yawning into his fourth cup of coffee, “lavender means _faithful.”_

Her gaze was pointed.

Rodney understood. “Faithful I can do.”

“Good,” Kusanagi said, and returned to her work station.

Rodney smiled down at his coffee cup - handmade, ceramic, raku-glazed - and considered getting a little pot of bluebells for his nightstand.


End file.
